Figure 1.-- Children need to be chalenged. A good prep school provides a variety of challenges. There is substantial variations from school to school. In recent years many schools have begun to place a greater emphasis on the academic challenge.
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Figure 1.-- Children need to be chalenged. A good prep school provides a variety of challenges. There is substantial variations from school to school. In recent years many schools have begun to place a greater emphasis on the academic challenge. |
Educators vary as to how they preceive the importance of challenge. Some eduvators are willing to limit the extent to which children are challenged so that no child will experiebce failure. They fear the psychological impact of failure. Schools that limit challenge, however, also limit the psychological benefits of mastering a challenge. While this is a debate in contemporary education, the prep schools geneally are committed to challeging their children. Most prep school headmasters would agree that children need to be chalenged and are less prope to limiting challenge than is the case in the state system. Thorpe House tells parents, for example, that "We do not believe that anything worth while can be attained easily, so that a boy must be prepared for his years at Thorpe House to be sometimes hard and challenging. At the same time we feel that he will be able to look back on them as some of the happiest and mast fulfilling years of his life." Of course this emphasis on challenge does not mean that the program is not carefully prepared so that the average child can succeed. Standards are different from school to school. Some schools cater to the clever (bright) child, but most schools have a program geared to the average child with a scholarship program for the especually gifted children. A good prep school provides a variety of challenges and not just academic challenge. . The challenges at prep schools have varied over time. There used to be a considerable emphasis on sports. Modern prep schools place a greater emphasis on academic challenge. The emphasis and approach also varies substantiaslly from school to school. As another school tells parents, "All children should greet a new day feeling they will meet new situations, tests and experiences even if some of these must necesarilybe conventional. Challenge comes in many ways--some physical and some academic." The key for the successful school, however, is to ensure that the challenges provided are appropriate for the children involved. The children gain confidence as they master the challenges provided. As the school explains, "In the last analysis, a young child measures himself in terms of what he can do. It is later in his, life that he finds out who and what he is."
